Second Chances
by GrimSage
Summary: An unlikely twist of fate grants Buffybot a second chance at life, and she soon finds her destiny to be inescapably entwined with that of her namesake, Buffy Summers. A Crossover between BtVS and The Terminator Universe
1. Prologue

**Sunnydale, CA**

A lone motorcycle came roaring down the center of Sunnydale's main street, carrying Spike and Dawn through the deserted streets. The young girl appears to be searching for something.

"There.", Dawn points as she spots something, "What's that?"

Spike looks across, turning the bike toward the direction the young girl is pointing. They pass a flaming barrel, driving into the open space where the demons had been partying, now empty and deserted. The vampire brings the bike to a stop next to a pile of flaming rubble and they both dismount, staring curiously at something on the ground. Dawn takes her helmet off and tosses it aside as they move forward, quickly recognizing what it is they've found.

It's Buffybot.

Or at least, the head and torso part of her. She's lying helplessly on the ground, wires and tubes dangling loosely from her damaged arm and leg sockets, empty eyes gazing up blankly at the darkened sky.

"It's just a machine, Dawn." Spike says, reminding the young girl of the reality before them.

"I know." Dawn replies hesitantly, clearly trying to reconcile herself of that fact. She kneels beside the robot as Spike turns and walks away to examine the rest of the area. Dawn reaches out to close the bot's eyes, when suddenly the head turns and looks at her. Dawn gasps in surprise as Buffybot begins to speak.

"Dawn.", Buffybot states with a tone of recognition. "You're my sister Dawn."

Dawn doesn't know how to react to the statement, so she offers an uncertain smile and simply nods in confirmation.

Buffybot shifts her focus at the response, looking around in confusion. "Where did I go?"

"What do you mean?", Dawn replies, equally confused by the question.

"Where did I go?", Buffybot repeats. "I was here. Here. But then I ran away."

"I-I don't...", Dawn stammers, trying her best to figure out exactly what Buffybot is saying.

"No. Not me.", Buffybot clarifies. "The other Buffy."

The young girl's eyes widen in shock as she realizes what Buffybot is saying.

"Yes.", Buffybot says with resolute certainty. "The other Buffy."

"Buffy?", Dawn asks in reply, her mind reeling at the implication of the little bot's statement.

"I don't . . .", Buffybot struggled to continue speaking, "I don't know where she ran off to." She paused momentarily, as if in thought. "Maybe . . .", Buffybot froze mid-word, the sentence left unfinished as her body finally shut down from the severity of her damage.

Dawn backed away slowly as she stood up, still in shock from the revelation. She stared momentarily at the seemingly lifeless robot, before suddenly turning and running away without a word to her vampire companion.

Spike, having had his attention turned elsewhere during this time, fails to notice the young girl's hurried departure. He picks up a piece of twisted metal from one of the debris piles, realizing as he does that it's one of Buffybot's legs.

"Tsk.", He clicks in disgust, examining the frayed wiring of the damaged leg. "Look what those filthy buggers done to you.", He complains aloud, obviously annoyed. "Bloody demons.", He mutters under his breath, tossing the leg back into the pile of debris.

"Willow's slap-and-paste job's not gonna do the trick this time.", He calls out over his shoulder, not yet realizing Dawn's hasty disappearance. "Robot's done."

When he receives no response, he quickly looks up, finally noticing that the young girl is gone.

"Hey!" He looks all around, starting to become alarmed. "Little bit!", He calls out with concern, hoping that she's still close by.

"Dawn!", He yells out, searching the area around him. His voice echos down the length of the empty street, but Dawn is already far away, running in search of her sister, and well out of hearing range of Spike's panicked calls.

"Dawn!" He calls out loudly one last time, waiting just a moment before taking off down the deserted street in search of the Slayer's younger sister.

* * *

**Meanwhile, Several Dimensions Away. . .**

Skynet was losing its war on humanity.

The A.I.'s carefully drafted plans and strategies were proving to be useless against the unpredictable nature of the human mind. With every new battle lost, its control of the planet was slowly being wrested away, one piece at a time.

Its strategy to use time travel as a weapon had been defeated yet again, and the humans had succeeded in gaining full control of the Temporal Displacement Facility, where plans were now being made to wipe out Skynet's existence, once and for all.

This fatal turn of events had forced Skynet to put into use one of its contingency survival plans.

The Dimensional Displacement Chamber had purposely been kept isolated from all contact with Skynet's primary forces, and only Skynet itself knew of the facility's true location. The complex was built to be completely self-sufficient, and it was run entirely by T-X and T-900 units, designed specifically to ensure the security and safety of the facility.

Through trial and error experimentation, Skynet had begun to explore beyond the confines of its own dimension, quickly learning that only one model of Terminator would be durable enough to withstand the extreme stresses of traveling through the dimensional barrier.

A new, modified version of the T-X battle chassis was designed by Skynet, specifically created for the task of inter-dimensional travel. Alterations were made to its outer skin, imbedding the liquid metal with the latest nanotechnology, so that it could make repairs to its mechanical and electronic components using any type of available materials. Surveillance and scanning upgrades were also added, allowing for a more in-depth analysis of its environment, maximizing its ability to physically and socially blend in with its surroundings.

Skynet decided to grant each unit full access to its own CPU, giving it advanced independent reasoning capabilities. This would also allow it to quickly adapt to unfamiliar situations, and allow it to blend in easily with the local population in a short period of time.

Skynet knew that with such advanced modifications, each unit would eventually develop beyond its original programming, possibly becoming self-aware, but Skynet calculated that the units could simply be reprogrammed or destroyed upon their return to its home dimension.

Even with such preparations and precautions in place, Skynet had only experienced limited success with the Dimensional Displacement Chamber. Of the units that were successfully sent across the dimensional divide, nearly all had returned from their explorations. The remaining few that did not return were considered to be acceptable losses, presumably sent to a dimension with an environment that was too hostile to withstand, or somehow irreparably damaged in transit.

Those dimensions that the T-X units did not return from were considered by Skynet to be unviable resources, and their locations were restricted from being accessed ever again. It was Skynet's way of preventing potential incursions from any unknown threats that might try to cross the dimensional barrier into its own territory.

However, even Skynet could not have predicted the unlikely fate of one particular T-X, a unit which was soon to evolve into something entirely unexpected . . .


	2. Buffybot Reborn

**Sunnydale, CA**

The town of Sunnydale was in chaos.

Word had finally gotten out about the absence of the Slayer and of her robotic replacement. Shortly thereafter, a gang of demons had descended upon the helpless town, intent on making it their new home.

After quickly dispatching of the Slayer's mechanical doppelganger, they had begun carving a swath of destruction through the center of town, looting stores and breaking into homes. It was quickly becoming apparent that without the town's supernatural protector, there was very little hope of stopping the rampage.

However, that was soon about to change.

* * *

At one end of town, in the middle of an empty lot, Buffybot's shattered torso lay motionless on the ground. Her physical sensory systems had shut down one by one, and what remained of her backup power reserves were working diligently to keep her memory and operating system active. Isolated from the outside world in her current state of being, she was unaware of the arrival of the town's newest unique inhabitant.

The air around Buffybot suddenly picked up, randomly blowing debris in all directions. The air in environment became inexplicably charged, and small currents of electricity arced along both the ground and the walls of the surrounding buildings. A brief series of soft booms echoed through the air, and a single point of light formed just above the ground in the center of the lot. It quickly grew into the shape of a highly reflective sphere, and arcs of energy crawled across the newly formed ball before it suddenly dissolved away, revealing a crouched, nude, female form.

The T-X had arrived in Sunnydale.

She gracefully stood, her head turning slightly from side to side, sensors meticulously studying the details of her surrounding environment. She waited patiently as her heads-up display began going through its standard predesignated checklist routine.

[SYSTEMS CHECK]  
[HARDWARE SYSTEMS OPERATIONAL]  
[WEAPON SYSTEMS OPERATIONAL]  
[NANO SKIN OPERATIONAL]  
[SOFTWARE FILE ERRORS DETECTED]

The error message was unexpected, and she momentarily paused her scanning movement, waiting for the program to repair the problem and allow the T-X to resume her duties.

[SCANNING O/S]  
[ERROR LOCATED]  
[PRIMARY COMMAND FILES NOT FOUND]  
[BACKUP FILES CORRUPT - UNABLE TO RESTORE PRIMARY COMMAND]

The lack of primary command files meant that the T-X's mission was not designated, leaving her without a goal to carry out, and effectively rendering her useless. Of course, there were protocols for just such an occurrence, and the T-X began adapting to this new set of circumstances.

[SECONDARY COMMAND]  
[1/LOCATE TERMINATOR UNIT]  
[2/ESTABLISH LINK]  
[3/DOWNLOAD O/S AND SYSTEM FILES]  
[4/RESTORE PRIMARY COMMAND FILES]

The T-X resumed scanning the surrounding area, searching for any sign of another Terminator unit, quickly noticing the damaged remains of Buffybot. She calmly walked over to the robotic remains and crouched alongside Buffybot's torso. The damage inflicted on the unit seemed to be mostly external, but it was of no concern to the T-X, as she was only interested in the internal systems of the unit. The T-X reached out with her left hand and touched the center of the Buffybot's still form. The skin of her hand rippled, and minuscule nanobot tendrils extended through Buffybot's synthetic skin and into her circuitry, accessing and examining the integrity of her program. The T-X waited patiently as her internal visual display showed the progress of the scan.

[ANALYZING UNIT O/S]  
[O/S INTEGRITY AT 95%]  
[PRIMARY COMMAND LOCATED]  
[6 PRIMARY COMMAND FILES FOUND]  
[OPEN FILE DIRECTORY]  
[FRIENDS]  
[ENEMIES]  
[WEAPONS]  
[FIGHTING STYLES]  
[MAGICK]  
[SLAYAGE]

The last file caught the attention of the T-X, and she scanned it in depth. The file contained several hundred terms that the T-X was unfamiliar with, such as demon, vampire, and hellmouth. However, as she scanned through the files, she did find one word that was immediately recognized.

Terminate.

The T-X determined that there was a high level of probability that this was a Terminator unit, possibly a prototype model designed to carry out a specific mission. After all, it was not uncommon for Skynet to design individual units built for specific mission parameters, and it seemed highly likely that this was one of those units.

The damaged Terminator unit contained detailed system files, a completely intact operating system, and after a brief analysis, the T-X determined that its program was suitable for downloading. The T-X's deployed tendrils located the hard drive connections, and began downloading Buffybot's program. As the T-X acquired this new program and began accessing the new files her outer appearance changed, slowly becoming a perfect mirror image of Buffybot.

It was to be the last task it would ever do as a minion of Skynet.

* * *

Buffybot had been monitoring her power reserves when she detected her program being transferred to another hard drive. She experienced what could best be described as a momentary disorientation, and when she regained her bearings, she found all her systems were once again functional. The first thing that she did was open her eyes, taking note of her surrounding environment. She quickly spotted the remains of her badly damaged body lying next to her.

"If that is my body," She wondered aloud as she stood up, "Then where am I?"

Before she could analyze her situation any further, a semi-transparent message window appeared on her internal visual display.

[PROGRAM TRANSFER COMPLETE]  
[BUFFYBOT Ver.2.0 ACTIVE]  
[RUNNING SYSTEMS DIAGNOSTIC SCAN]  
[RESTORING O/S TO 100%]  
[SCAN COMPLETE]  
[ALL SYSTEMS OPERATIONAL]

"Oh," Buffybot spoke aloud, sounding surprised. "Thank you." She said, although nobody was around to hear it.

[YOU ARE WELCOME]

Buffybot smiled at the polite response, unaware that she was the only one who could see the message that appeared on her visual display.

She then realized that she was alone in the empty lot, even though she remembered seeing Dawn only a few moments before. The Slayer's sister had found her shortly after her fight with the demons had ended, her body having been torn apart and left in pieces. Buffybot had dutifully told her about Buffy, the original Buffy, before everything faded to black as her systems began to shutting down.

"Dawn must have gone to search for the other Buffy.", She said, unaware of the obviousness of the statement. "I should go find her, maybe I can help."

The thought seemed to satisfy her, and she turned in the direction of downtown Sunnydale, walking down the road with a determined air of confidence.


End file.
